A car that spreads its wings and flies off
and lands and rolls on normal roads: the bet made by the US Company Terrafugia
should test its prototype in 2018 and plans for commercial production between
2023 and 2027.
The American company Terrafugia, already causing
a small single engine with folding wings, the Transition, presented in 2012,
plans to move up a gear with a real car able to fly (and not a plane that can
run several kilometers). A few weeks ago, it announced that the prototype of
this new device, called TF-X, could emerge by 2018. The first wind tunnel tests
of scale models were held successfully this winter.
Unlike the Transition model, which aimed to
solve the "last mile problem" (or "last kilometer problem",
ie the distance between the runway of a private plane and the final destination
of the traveler), the TF-X was designed as much as a car capable of traveling
several kilometers to urban or intercity travel, as that aircraft capable
browse tens to hundreds of kilometers in the air. Besides, if the Transition
design was clearly that of a small plane, that of the TF-X much more
reminiscent of the lines of traditional cars.
Image:
Terrafugia
Driving
and autonomous steering
No reactors expel flames as in the saga of
Robert Zemeckis, however: like the Transition, the TF-X spreads wings to fly.
These are bonded to the cabin when the vehicle has gone. But this time, at the
end of the wings, directional rotors allow to fly vertically and then fly by
tilting propellers. In the manner of the British fighter Hawker Siddeley
Harrier, pioneers in the field of aircraft vertical takeoff.
Beyond the revolutionary concept of a
flying car for four people, Terrafugia engineers also want to integrate the
device the latest motorization technologies in but also driver assistance (or
control). Thus, the TF-X is a hybrid vehicle with an engine but also electric
batteries to power the motors turning propellers. In addition, an electronic
aid device would be in charge of piloting (including the delicate phases of
takeoff and landing) of the device with choosing the best site for landing. The
driver-driver always retaining the option of refusing the landing place for
preferring one another.
Technically, Terrafugia announced a one
megawatt power to move the propellers and two engines of 300 hp to power the
battery, all to achieve a cruising speed of 200 miles per hour (322km / h).
Autonomy in turn is announced 800km flight. Once landed, the craft would need a
few seconds to stop the propellers, fold, and put away the wings along the passenger
with the rotors in a special compartment in the lower-of-box. The aircraft
would return as a car capable of traveling several kilometers to reach the
final destination chosen by the driver, who could then take control.
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